Synopsis

The story begins in Tokyo, Japan with a junior high-school girl named Kagome Higurashi, who, on her way to school, heads to the covered well on the family property (which happens to be a Shinto shrine).

She does this to retrieve her cat, Buyo, from the well, since her brother was afraid to go inside.

When she approaches the well a centipede demon bursts from the well and grabs her.

The demon claims that Kagome possesses the Jewel of the Four Souls (Shikon no Tama) and attempts to seize it.

When the demon is driven off, the very confused Kagome emerges in the Sengoku period of Japan.

Kagome wanders into a nearby village and meets an old miko (Shinto shrine maiden) by the name of Kaede, who recognizes that Kagome is almost a mirror likeness for Kikyo (Kikyou), her elder sister (and powerful shrine maiden) who had died at the age of 18 and had her body burned with the Jewel of the Four Souls, taking it with her into the afterlife.

Kaede relates the story of how, 50 years earlier, a han'yō named InuYasha had tried to steal the Jewel from Kikyo, mortally wounding her in the process, but Kikyo had managed to strike him with a magical arrow, pinning him into an enchanted sleep against a tree and thus retrieving the Jewel before she finally died. It is later shown that Inuyasha had a relationship with the priestess Kikyo.

from wikipedia